


Blank

by Decisions_Decisions



Series: A Marked Soul [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Magical Realism, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7882216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decisions_Decisions/pseuds/Decisions_Decisions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting a soulmate is a wonderful thing, but the marks don't always take. While Sherlock is marked by a skull Mycroft's chest is as blank as it was the day before he got the procedure. What kind of person doesn't have a mark?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blank

The procedure to grant a person the mark of their soul hasn't existed for long and few can afford it but superstitions have still sprung up in the wake of it's use. People used to believe that an unmarked individual will never meet their soulmate due to death or distance, but time had proven them wrong, the marked could people die without meeting their soulmates. Most believe that the marks have some sort of meaning, some say that you can tell your future from the position, content, and size of the mark, and almost everyone believes that someone who is left unmarked by the procedure is tainted somehow.

Sherlock's mark is a horror, a ghastly ancient skull that smiles with yellowed teeth and empty eye sockets that seem almost unnaturally dark. It dances with guns and the twisted gaping wounds of other names, it cracks and rages on his skin. It glows almost angelic, even the eyes brightening, and it storms lightning striking the bone, leaving Lichtenburg figures in bright electric blue behind. Vibrant and dark, it sits like a warning on Sherlock's chest, like its proclaiming he's bound for an early grave, so stay away. Don't let yourself close or when the inevitable happens and Sherlock goes up in flames you'll be in the bonfire with him.

Mycroft's chest is blank, a mottled freckled canvas examined by an artist but left unpainted and he is glad, proud in a way many would think twisted. He cannot afford not to be, pride is all he has left and he clings to it with his all. He has heard the whispers behind closed doors as his parents agonized over the fate of their youngest son. He's seen them paint themselves with the regret of putting him through a procedure that had done nothing but remind them all of how alone Sherlock really was. But for all their worry and fretting over Sherlock his skull is preferable to the blank space that sits over Mycroft's cold and empty heart.

Sherlock is a tragedy but Mycroft is a monster.

When they think he is not near, when they forget that he has eyes everywhere and secrets are the luxuries of those he does not care for, he can hear them. as quietly as they are whispered they are loud in Mycroft's ears. He can hear them at night seeping through the floorboards entering through the cracks in his room. They stalk him those whispers that follow him endlessly, that claw themselves into the walls of his own mind palace despite how he tries to delete them. Heartless, monster, fix him, what if he can't be fixed, what if he's the reason poor Sherlock has the skull, what if he's the reason his brother's life will be cut short.

What if?

What if?

What if?

His own parents whispering in the dark hiding from the monster that lives under their roof. He is aloof and untouchable, his skin proclaims it so and so it must be. He spends more nights drinking scotch alone with only the light of his fireplace to keep him company. He is not happy, but his own happiness was never something he sought. He spent his life chasing Sherlock's instead.

He is not jealous, he tells himself. He is not bitter, he lies into the mirror every morning even though his tongue shoots out poison. He reminds Sherlock frequently, cooly, that he does not need a soul mark. He is whole, complete unto himself. He needs nothing and no one, he's the smart one, he's the clever one. He hides from bitter jealousy with bitter jealous words and Sherlock follows in his footsteps. He is constantly reminded that he is fat, that he is markless, that he is annoying, that he is the ever present thorn in his brothers side.

It is both relieving and horrifying that Sherlock is the only one that will say it to his face. Sherlock never whispers it behind closed doors he screams it, he cries though he never admits it, he carries on. It hurts, but monsters do not feel pain. He isn't sure if that makes him more of a monster or less of one and on good days, and on the very rare exceptional ones he considers the impossible that maybe he isn't a monster at all.

He buys his brother a skull to match the one on his chest a few weeks after the mark comes in and his parents sigh in terrified relief. He wraps it up and gives it to Sherlock to remind him that he's not a mistake. That skulls can mean adventure, childhood memories, the Jolly Roger, pirate treasure mysteries, bull whips, ancient temples, and theater. He talks of forensic anthropology and discovering long lost civilizations, hero's and solving crimes, and the Phantom's skull shaped ring that he used to leave his mark on criminals who were not strong enough or clever enough to beat him.

Mycroft is a monster but Sherlock can be saved.

What kind of monster would let his brother die without a fight? So Mycroft searches, he searches the newspapers, he searches the streets, he fine tunes his skills chasing the skull that matches the one on his brother's chest. He soon finds that it isn't enough, nothing is ever enough, his efforts to save Sherlock do nothing, they do less than nothing, they push him away until he looks at his brother and sees only a stranger, but he can't stop. He sees his brother fall and as he claws and bites and blackmails himself into the power he needs to save Sherlock he cannot feel the wind whip past him as he joins his brother in free fall.

The years render him cold as he watches Sherlock devolve from a bright promising into a stranger who chases highs and ignores the soul he strings along into his depravity. He is the iceman, perfectly in control, even as he scolds Sherlock for his stupidity as he lays his brother in the guest room that might as well be his because Mycroft can only tolerate stupidity from Sherlock. He spies on his brother and watches in agony as he spirals into despair and overdoses, as wan and skeletal as the mark on his chest. He curses their parents for doing this to them, for marking Sherlock with death and Mycroft with nothing.

He lives a hollow shell of a life chasing a man who doesn't to heal the brother who doesn't want to be well. He is power, he's fought for it, he's earned it, but he feels helpless as he watches his brother wither away. He can't find Sherlock's marked, he can't save his brother, he can only watch as Sherlock tries and fails to keep himself on the straight and narrow. He can do nothing but watch and protect from the shadows offering bribes of promotions and raises to let Sherlock put his mind to good use. He's loosing hope even as Sherlock slowly improves under the guidance of Lestrade who sees the potential in Sherlock where others have only seen the sputtering stub of a burned out candle, useless and better left alone.

His heart the empty cold thing that it is stops beating when he hears that Sherlock has collapsed with the name of a stranger on his lips. He goes to where Sherlock is and he does not leave until he is assured that it was a close call but Sherlock will live. He watches his brother until he is certain that he is as safe as a man living on borrowed time can be and then he digs into the lead like he would a fine meal. He has a name now for John his brother's soul and along with the mark's clues he finally has something to work with. Sherlock doesn't have long and he can't afford to waste time so he throws himself into the hunt with hope to spur him on.

Sherlock can be saved but Mycroft is a monster.


End file.
